Flowmeters provide information about materials being transferred through a conduit. For example, mass flowmeters provide a direct measurement of the mass of material being transferred through a conduit. Similarly, density flowmeters, or densitometers, provide a measurement of the density of material flowing through a conduit. Mass flowmeters also may provide a measurement of the density of the material.
Coriolis-type mass flowmeters are based on the Coriolis effect, in which material flowing through a rotating conduit becomes a radially travelling mass that is affected by a Coriolis force and therefore experiences an acceleration. Many Coriolis-type mass flowmeters induce a Coriolis force by sinusoidally oscillating a conduit about a pivot axis orthogonal to the length of the conduit. In such mass flowmeters, the Coriolis reaction force experienced by the traveling fluid mass is transferred to the conduit itself and is manifested as a deflection or offset of the conduit in the direction of the Coriolis force vector in the plane of rotation.
Energy is supplied to the conduit by a driving mechanism that applies a periodic force to oscillate the conduit. One type of driving mechanism is an electromechanical driver that imparts a force proportional to an applied current. In an oscillating flowmeter, the applied current is periodic, and is generally sinusoidal. The period of the input current may be chosen so that the motion of the conduit matches a resonant mode of vibration of the conduit, which generally reduces the energy needed to sustain oscillation. An oscillating flowmeter may use a feedback loop in which a sensor signal that carries instantaneous frequency and phase information related to oscillation of the conduit is amplified and fed back to the conduit using the electromechanical driver. Other types of driving mechanisms, such as an electromechanical driver that imparts a force proportional to an applied voltage, also may be used.
Many conventional flowmeters are essentially analog devices in which a sensor signal frequency and phase information are amplified, for example by an analog op-amp, before being fed back into the electromechanical driver. In such flowmeters, there may be little or no phase delay between the signal(s) being sensed at the conduit and the driving signal being applied to the conduit at the other end of the feedback loop. Such analog flowmeters may be prone to the introduction of high harmonics of a desired oscillation frequency, particularly during start-up operations when an estimated drive signal is applied to the conduit to begin the feedback loop described above. Moreover, analog flowmeters may be prone to gain saturation of the op amp, which may occur during “two-phase flow” through the conduit (e.g., an air pocket or entrained air in a flow of liquid) and which can lead to a damping effect on the conduit, or a stalling of the entire oscillation process. Finally, analog flowmeters may be prone to typical shortcomings of analog circuitry, e.g., relatively low precision and high noise measurements.
In contrast to analog flowmeters, digital flowmeters also exist. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,311,136 and 6,507,791, which are hereby incorporated by reference, disclose the use of a digital flowmeter and related technology. Such digital flowmeters may have various advantages over analog flowmeters; for example, they may be more precise in their measurements, with less noise, and may be capable of enabling a wide range of positive and negative gains at the driver circuitry. Such digital flowmeters are thus advantageous in a variety of settings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,519 discloses the use of a wide gain range, and/or the use of negative gain, to prevent stalling and to more accurately exercise control of the flowtube, even during difficult conditions such as two-phase flow.